


dusk till dawn

by orestes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Lions, M/M, Police Officer Derek Hale, Snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2019-11-06 00:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17929181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orestes/pseuds/orestes
Summary: "This is the weirdest thing you have ever made me do,” Stiles tells Scott solemnly as they head back towards the jeep. “And that includes the time you broke your leg in fifth grade then made me cut all your toenails for you when you realised you couldn’t reach around the cast."In which Scott steals a lion, Stiles is an unwitting accomplice, and Derek is the long-suffering police officer who happens to live downstairs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boyfriends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfriends/gifts).



> i'm back in the writing game! this has been sitting in my documents for about two years, and i thought it was about time i released it to the world. working title was "lions and tigers and weres, oh my!"
> 
> updates should be fortnightly. all feedback appreciated!

Stiles is half asleep when his phone vibrates loudly against the nightstand. He reaches out for it automatically -- a habit he developed during the months of anxiety and paranoia that followed the incident where he slept through all the calls about his dad getting himself shot in the leg during a night shift -- and squints blearily at the screen.

He has two missed calls and four messages, all from Scott.

**_Are you awake?_ ** **_  
_ ** **_I might be in trouble._ ** **_  
_ ** **_Stuck near the main campus building._ ** **_  
_ ** ****_**Need a ride home. SOS please help.**_

Stiles tries to call him back but -- somewhat predictably, considering this is Scott -- the call goes straight to voicemail.

“This better be a life or death situation, Scottie,” Stiles tells the recording sternly. “I have a class at nine tomorrow. I should’ve been asleep an hour ago.”

Still, he pulls a loose hoodie on over his pajamas, slips his phone into the front pocket, toes on a ratty pair of sneakers, grabs his keys from the hook by the door, and he goes.

Scott must feel confident that Stiles will rescue him from whatever mess he’s gotten himself into this time despite Stiles grumbling at him via voicemail, because he doesn’t attempt to get in touch with Stiles at all during the ten minute drive to college.

Or maybe--

Maybe he can’t text Stiles because he’s hurt.

Stiles parks at a diagonal across two spaces at the back of the parking lot, cuts the engine, flings the door open without bothering to turn his headlights off, and throws himself out of the jeep with all the grace of a newborn elephant. His heart is beating fast in his chest.

The headlights are bright enough to show that the parking lot is vacant, but Stiles still grabs a torch from his glove compartment, switches it on, and gives his surroundings a cursory sweep. Just to be sure he hasn’t missed anything. Scott could have gotten himself lodged under a truck -- or worse -- for all Stiles knows. None of his messages were particularly specific.

Stiles leans against the hood of the jeep and tries to call him.

“ _What’s up? This is Scott,_ ” the overly familiar voicemail recording chirps back at him. _“Sorry I missed your call. Leave me a message and I’ll hit you back as soon as I--”_

Stiles hangs up, muttering half-hearted curses under his breath, and proceeds to shoot Scott a series of increasingly irritated texts.

**_I just got here._ ** **_  
_ ** **_Waiting in the parking lot. Where are you???_ ** **_  
_ ** **_My balls hate you right now. It’s cold out here and I’m wearing cotton pajama pants bro >:(_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Very tired. VERY. Hurry the fuck up._ ** **_  
_ ** **_Starting to worry here. Where are you?_ ** **_  
_ ** ******_Are you aware that it’s 11:43 PM, Scott?_**

Stiles is so immersed in typing out his next message -- an empty threat about how he’s going to head home without Scott if his well-sculpted ass doesn't make an appearance in the carpark some time in the next ten minutes -- he almost drops his phone in surprise when it starts ringing.

“Hi,” Scott says, his voice high and breathless. “Stiles -- dude, I'm so sorry. My phone was on silent. I didn’t realize you were already here.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Stiles says, long suffering. “Why wouldn’t your phone be on silent? It’s not like you told me you were in trouble and asked me to collect you from college in the middle of the night with _no explanation whatsoever_ or anything worrying like that.”

“I’m so sorry,” Scott says again, and this time Stiles can almost hear his apologetic grimace. “There was this janitor, and then I had to hide in one of the lecture theatres, and I thought he was going to find me and -- yeah. It was bad. Are you still in the parking lot?”

“You -- what?”

“Are you still in the parking lot,” Scott repeats slowly, like that’s what Stiles is struggling to grasp. “Because I could kind of use some help with--”

“I meant what as in _what the ever loving fuck_ , Scott.” Stiles drags a hand down one side of his face, agitated. “Please tell me I misunderstood what you just said. You haven’t actually broken into our college in the middle of the night, have you?”

“Um,” Scott says, sheepish. “Does it still count as breaking in if I used a key card?”

Stiles narrows his eyes into the darkness. “Whose key card did you use?”

“My… own?” Scott answers hesitantly.

“Of course you did.” Stiles rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why I even asked.”

Scott isn’t particularly skilled when it comes to the art of subterfuge. Never has been, never will be. He’s too impulsive, and gets too caught up in dealing with a problem to see the bigger picture, and he has a tendency to take the quickest route around any problems he encounters without stopping to consider whether or not he’s making the smartest move.

Case in point: he used his own key card to break into campus after hours.

“Do you think I should have used someone else’s?” Scott asks, sounding worried.

“No, it’s fine.” Stiles rubs a hand across his forehead, where he feel can already feel the first pangs of a headache throbbing at his temples. “I can just ask Danny to wipe the access record off the system when I see him tomorrow.”

Stiles will undoubtedly have to call in a few favors to get Danny to agree to do it -- even at the friendliest points in their relationship, Danny never has liked him very much -- but he’s sure they can figure something out with a little bit of negotiation.

“Will we need him to cover up anything else for us?” Stiles asks, because he needs to know whether he needs to bring out the big guns for this one or not. “What were you doing at college after hours anyway? Did you do anything illegal? Have you been _stealing_?”

“No!” Scott sounds scandalized. “Stiles, what the hell? I’m not stealing! I just came to pick up a few emergency supplies from the clinic.”

“Are you allowed to do that? And why would you choose _the middle of the night_ to do that? Has there been an emergency? Did you--”

“I’m fine,” Scott interrupts before Stiles can spiral too deeply into worried speculation. “Everything is fine. I just needed to get some stuff. Can you come find me? I need some help carrying things.”

Stiles sighs. “Where are you?”

“Over by the dumpsters.”

“You mean the dumpsters outside the cafeteria?”

“Yeah.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“That’s great, Scott. I’m glad you picked such an unsanitary place to wait.” Stiles turns his headlights off, pulls his keys out of the ignition, hip-checks the driver’s side door shut and locks the jeep. “I’m on my way now. I’ll be with you in a minute, okay?”

\---

He finds Scott behind the dumpsters, hovering protectively over a large, rotten-smelling plastic bag and a pet-carrier that seems to be stuffed full of blankets. His hair is wilder than usual, and his shirt is covered in small tears and rips.

“What the hell happened to you?” Stiles demands, crouching down beside Scott.

“Oh, I--” Scott’s eyes widen as he follows Stiles’s gaze down to his torso, like he’s only noticing how tattered his shirt is now Stiles has drawn his attention to it. “Um. There was a… thing.” He makes a vague gesture at the pet carrier. “It’s not a big deal. I’m not hurt or anything.”

Stiles frowns. “Did the blankets attack you?”

“Nothing attacked me,” Scott says, like that should’ve been obvious. Like he thinks _Stiles_ is the one acting weird. “I got scratched. Hold this.”

Scott picks the plastic bag up and thrusts it in Stiles’s direction. Stiles makes a face and tries to push it away, disgusted, but Scott holds it there -- right under his nose -- until Stiles eventually relents and accepts the burden of carrying it. Scott rewards him with a small lopsided smile before he scoops up the pet-carrier, cradling it carefully to his chest.

Stiles should probably question this scenario more closely, but it’s cold -- even more so now he’s so far away from the heat that probably isn’t supposed to come from the hood of his jeep -- and he’s tired, and his fingers are starting to feel numb.

He figures he can save the inquisition at least until they’re somewhere warmer.

“This is the weirdest thing you have ever made me do,” Stiles tells Scott solemnly as they head back towards the jeep. “And that includes the time you broke your leg in fifth grade then made me cut all your toenails for you when you realised you couldn’t reach around the cast.”

\---

“Why don’t you leave the carrier in the backseat?” Stiles suggests, wiggling his cold fingers against the steering wheel. He’s put the plastic bag in the trunk already. There was no way he was about to let that -- whatever it is -- stink out his upholstery when he paid to have the jeep’s interior cleaned just last week.

Scott has the box balanced on his lap and his arms looped around the sides of it. “Because I don’t want it to… break?” he replies, sounding uncertain.

Stiles holds his hands up in resignation.

“Okay then,” he says.

\---

Stiles puts a pot of coffee on when they get back to his apartment, figuring they could both use it, while Scott carefully lowers himself -- and the pet carrier, much to Stiles’s chagrin -- down on the couch. Every now and then Scott pokes his a finger through the grate at the front of the box and smiles to himself. Stiles watches him from the kitchen doorway while he waits for their coffee to boil, torn between amusement and worry.

Between the pet-carrier, the ‘emergency supplies,’ and the special kind of softness Scott gets in his eyes when he looks at animals -- well. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on here.

Stiles carries the pot of coffee and two mugs into the main room, passes one of the mugs to Scott, and curls both palms around the other one as he settles down on the other side of the couch.

“So,” he says.

Scott turns to him with that small, warm smile still in place. “So…”

“Are you going to show me what you have in that box?”

“Not yet. I think he’s still asleep.” Scott absently rubs the pad of his thumb along the hinge at the front of the carrier. “I had to give him a pretty strong sedative at the clinic. Poor dude was freaking out on me.” Scott grimaces. “It’s gonna be at least another hour before he’s ready to wake up again.”

Stiles looks from Scott’s tattered shirt to the medium size of the pet carrier.

“Is it a cat?” he hazards.

“It’s--” Scott cuts himself off mid-thought, wrinkles his nose, and scratches the back of his neck in the awkward way he always does when he feels uncomfortable about something. “Um. A cat. Yeah.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at him.

“Why do you have a cat?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Scott admits. “But -- well. Isaac and I were at that place near the bridge. The one with the strobe lights and the cheap drinks.”

“You mean that crappy dive-bar with the hot bartender that you guys are both in love with?”

Scott nods. “That place, yeah. So, anyway, we were grabbing a drink there after Isaac’s shift finished, just chilling by the bar or whatever, talking to Allison, when these two sketchy ass dudes come over to us out of nowhere and tell us to get the fuck out of their space.”

“Right,” Stiles says, failing to see how any of this is relevant.

“So we backed off because we didn’t want to start a fight with them or anything, but we figured we should stay close and keep an eye on them, especially once they started to order themselves shots of all the top-shelf liquors and stuff.”

“How very noble of you,” Stiles says.

Scott doesn’t acknowledge the comment, just steamrollers on.

“Then they started boasting about how they were going to make a lot of money this week, and at first we kind of figured they were pimps or something -- they seemed the type from the way they were talking, you know? But then one of them started talking about how they managed to find a buyer for -- um. For the cat.”

“How much money can one cat seriously be worth?” Stiles asks, incredulous.

Scott shrugs.

“Don’t know.”

“Must be a lot if they were ordering top-shelf liquor over it,” Stiles points out.

“Yeah, um.” Scott lets out a thin laugh. “I guess it must be a rare breed.”

“And you guys were overcome with righteous fury and decided to steal it?”

“Not quite,” Scott says. “The other guy went and got the cage from his car -- I think he was trying to impress Allison with it or something -- and we could see how the cat was just, like, _shaking_ inside it, completely fucking terrified, dude, and Isaac kind of just… flipped at them? You know how he gets.”

Stiles does know how he gets. Stiles has been on the _receiving end_ of how he gets.

“So he punched the guys,” Stiles says.

“Yeah, and while all that confusion was going on Allison grabbed the cage and we ran outside, and--”

“And now you have the cat,” Stiles concludes.

“Yeah. I think that just about covers it.”

“So why didn’t you just take the damn thing home with you?”

“That’s the thing,” Scott starts, then pauses like he’s looking for the right words. “Our apartment has a strict no pets policy because Mrs Kumar across the hall has really bad allergies, and even though this is an emergency, we really don’t want her to get sick, so we figured maybe you wouldn’t mind just--”

“Oh no.” Stiles does not like where this is going. “Scott, no. You can’t honestly expect me to just look after some random stolen cat for you. I don’t know the first thing about animals!”

Scott frowns. “Didn’t you have a boa when we were kids?”

“That’s not the point,” Stiles snaps.

“But--”

“It’s not gonna happen.”

“Not even if--”

“No. There’s a no pets policy here too, you know!”

“Please?” Scott fixes him with his widest, most lethal puppy-dog eyes. “It will only be for a couple of days, dude, I swear. Just until I find another home for him.”

Stiles wants to snap out another no -- wants to keep on saying no until Scott gives in and drops this -- but he can’t when Scott is looking at him with so much trust and _hope_ in his expression.

So he purses his lips with a sigh and resigns himself to at least pretending to think about it.

He’s never been much of a pet person. He likes animals well enough, sure, but -- his childhood boa aside -- he doesn’t think he could ever actually commit to looking after one. Not even temporarily. Not when the thought of another living thing being dependent on him is so _terrifying_.

Stiles is only twenty-three years old. He’s not ready for that level of responsibility yet.

He looks at Scott, though, at the trust in his eyes and the hopeful smile at the corner of his lips, and what comes out instead of another _no_ is, “I’m not keeping him for more than two days.”

Scott’s smile is bright enough to light up the room.

\---

Turns out the ‘emergency supplies’ Scott needed to pick up from the clinic earlier includes a litter tray, a bag of litter, a chew toy to keep the little guy busy, three huge tranquiliser darts, some sort of milk formula -- which Scott gives Stiles a lot of very specific instructions about -- and a large bag of raw, rotten smelling meat.

“I got the meat from the canteen, not the clinic,” he admits when Stiles raises an eyebrow at it.

Stiles snorts. “I’m pretty sure that counts as stealing,” he says as he attempts to push a bag of frozen peas aside to make more room in his freezer. Half of the meat is in the fridge already, and the rest of it is going wherever Stiles can fit it. “This seems so unnecessary,” he grumbles. “I thought cats are supposed to eat pet food and milk and shit you can buy at the grocery store. And why do we need tranq darts? Exactly how vicious is this thing?”

“Milk is actually pretty bad for them.” Scott says. “They don’t digest it properly.”

Stiles gives him a flat look.

“And,” Scott continues reluctantly. “The tranq darts are just in case there’s an emergency.”

“What sort of emergency?”

Scott shrugs. “When animals have been through traumatic experiences they can lash out at people, and this one has been through a lot, so -- you know. I don’t want you to get hurt or anything.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

“Um.” Scott runs a hand through the short hairs at the back of his neck, uncomfortable. His eyes drift up to inspect the cracks in the paint on the ceiling. “No? But that’s just a worst-case scenario. Like, dude, you probably won’t need them.”

“This thing could attack me,” Stiles says slowly. “And it already attacked you. And now you’re going to _leave me_ with it? With nothing but these darts to defend myself with?”

Stiles resigns himself to the fact he’s not going to make it to class tomorrow.

“You’ll be fine,” Scott promises.

\--

The cat wakes up at four in the morning.

Scott has only been gone for an hour, and Stiles is exhausted, and now this fucking _thing_ that Stiles is suddenly responsible for has woken him up with its persistent yowling.

It must have hurled its body against the metal bars of the travel cage hard enough to knock it down, because the cage has fallen off the couch and landed at a forty-five degree angle between the leather base and the floor. Now it’s hissing at Stiles across the room, cage still tangled in the blankets Scott cushioned it with, snapping its jaws every time Stiles moves so much as an inch closer to it. The tears in Scott’s shirt suddenly make sense.

Stiles doesn’t even like cats. He has no idea how to deal with this. And Scott’s phone -- predictably -- keeps sending him straight to voicemail.

It’s a good thing Stiles has always excelled at thinking on his feet.

“Nice kitty,” he murmurs, slowly edging back towards the kitchen. “Stay right there.”

He maintains eye-contact as he grabs the oven gloves from the counter and pulls the mittens on, shielding his fingers from potential gnawing. The cat continues to snarl. Stiles takes a step closer. The snarling gets louder. He takes another step and the snarl evolves into a low growl.

“You think I’m scared of you?” Stiles is a master of bravado. He hopes the cat can’t hear the unsteady thump of his heart. “Well, dude,” he says, edging forward another step. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. Believe me, those weird dudes who tried to sell you are nothing compared to my childhood. I mean, Finstock was my lacrosse coach for _three years_ in high school. People say the combination of verbal abuse and physical torture he used during practise left everyone on the team immune to fear.”

About three feet away from the cage, Stiles starts wishing he’d paid attention to those nature documentaries that Scott used to make him watch. This cat seems as feral as a jungle cat. It’s thrashing from side to side in its cage now, visibly agitated by Stiles’s proximity, teeth snapping against the metal bars.

“Scott, you owe me so much,” Stiles mutters, and picks the cage up.

The cat is heavier than he expected. Up close its protruding canines are long and look dagger sharp. It opens its mouth wide and menacing as Stiles sets the bottom of the cage down on the couch. Stiles expects another attempt to chew his fingers off, but instead the cat rears back, tilts its head to the ceiling, and lets out an anticlimactically high-pitched mewling sound.

Stiles raises an eyebrow.

“Is that supposed to be threatening?”

The cat closes its mouth and fixes Stiles with the feline equivalent of an irritated scowl. Stiles snickers, shakes his head, and goes back to the kitchen to put the oven gloves away. He and the cat seem to have reached an stalemate: his fingers are safe for now.

Then the sharp sound of the buzzer followed by a series of thumps on the door startles them both out of tranquility: Stiles’s heartbeat starts to pound in his ears again as another barrage of angry cat noise ensues.

This must be what parents with newborn babies feel like all the time.

Stiles ignores the cat and opens the door.

“What?” he demands.

Derek Hale scowls at him from the other side of the threshold.

“There were three noise complaints,” he informs Stiles over the sound of the cat’s yowls. The loose t-shirt and pajama pants indicate that he’s not on duty, but the rigid line of his shoulders implies he’s still in Officer Hale mode. Maybe he worked a late shift. “You’re keeping the Taylors awake.” Derek cranes his neck to see around Stiles. “What’s going on in there?”

“Dude, you need to stop letting the Taylors use you as their personal building security system. If you keep indulging them, they’re never gonna stop, and you’re going to spend the rest of your life for as long as you live here waking up to calls in the middle of the night telling you that--”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts. “Answer my question.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Nothing was going on in here until _you_ tried to bust my door down and freaked the cat out again. I basically had the situation under control before you got here. Did you hear any noise before you started pounding on my--”

“The _cat_?”

Derek wrinkles his nose, tenses, and then pushes past Stiles to get into the apartment. Great. There goes whatever slim chance Stiles had of getting to his 9 am class.

“Dude, what the fuck! You can’t just bust in here and--”

“Shh,” Derek says.

It’s obvious that he was talking to Stiles, but the cat is the one who falls silent. Its body stops thrashing and its eyes fix on Derek, wide and uncertain.

“Oh,” Derek mutters. He crouches down beside the cage. “Oh, wow.” Before Stiles can stop him he’s lifting open the bar that seals the door shut. “Come here.” The cat doesn’t even attempt to chew his hand off as Derek lifts it slowly out of the cage and cradles it against one of his broad shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re okay.”

It’s like Derek has been possessed by the benevolent animal-loving spirit of David Attenborough. Derek, who has communicated with Stiles exclusively in snaps and snarls for the last two years, is crooning over the cat like it really is a newborn baby.

“What the fuck,” Stiles says.

As if he’s only just remembered that he’s not alone in kitten heaven, Derek’s eyes snap up at the sound of Stiles’s voice and then narrow.

“Where did you get this?”

Stiles thinks about the series of petty crimes Scott has committed tonight, and his own plans to cover them all up in the morning, and, as usual, concludes that telling the truth will end up being more trouble than it’s worth.

He shrugs.

“It’s just a stray I found hanging around at the end of the street. I took it in like the model citizen I am, and I’m gonna look into getting it adopted or whatever when it’s not, you know, the middle of the freaking night -- like it is right now, by the way -- so don’t get on my case about any of that the no pets allowed in the building bullshit.”

“You’re trying to tell me this is just some stray you found on the street,” Derek says, voice flat.

“Yep,” Stiles says, popping the P. “Just a cute little stray from the sidewalk. I’m pretty sure it’s lived through some trauma or something, and it’s been hard to keep it calm, but I’d say it’s probably still gonna be a 10/10 kitty once we get it cleaned up a bit. Have you ever considered welcoming a pet into your life, Officer Hale? As a solitary character, I think you would be well suited to--”

“Cut the crap, Stilinski.”

“Okay, fine.” Stiles throws his hands up in surrender. “I’m lying through my teeth right now. I don’t think being a pet owner would suit you well at all.”

“I can _tell_ when people are lying to me.”

He looks so serious that Stiles lets out an involuntary snort.

“What are you, a cop or psychic? I’m not lying about the cat,” Stiles lies, punctuating it with a heavy eye roll. “And even if I were lying, why the hell does it matter? It’s just a freaking cat! Who cares?”

“Are you kidding right now? How many domestic cats do you know with golden fur, round ears, and wide noses?” He pauses expectantly. Stiles doesn’t really know what Derek is getting at, so he shrugs again. Derek sighs. “Christ, you’re so clueless. This is a lion cub, Stilinski.”

Stiles blinks.

“It’s -- what?”

“And lion cubs are a restricted species in California. So either you tell me where you got this cub, or I’ll arrest you for trafficking, and you can explain yourself to a judge instead.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m serious,” Derek confirms.

Stiles feels his mouth drop open an inch or two.

A lion. In his apartment. An actual lion. He doesn’t want to believe it, but it explains a lot, from the tranq darts to the scratches on Scott’s shirt to the decision to steal the cat in the first place.

Fucking _Scott_ and his stupid, half-cocked plans.

Derek folds his arms in a way Stiles is sure he thinks is intimidating. In reality, it just makes his biceps bulge attractively against the sleeves of his loose t-shirt. It reminds Stiles of the cat -- _lion_ \-- trying to growl at him earlier. Stiles rubs his eyes. He’s too tired to deal with this.

“Dude,” he says. “That’s news to me. I need to, like, process this and shit. Can you just let -- I need to sleep so badly. Can we talk about this in the morning? Later in the morning, I mean, since it’s almost five AM, and I haven’t slept well at all, and I honestly have no idea how my night turned into this.”

Derek’s lips press together in a thin line.

“Fine. You can sleep. But I want your phone before you leave.” He holds out his hand. “Come on. I know you have connections. I don’t want you trying to cover anything up.”

Stiles groans and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Back when he used to take pictures of his dad’s confidential files, he had Danny install a killswitch on the back that should theoretically make the whole thing combust, therefore destroying any evidence that his dad had compromised police work. He could just hit the switch now and stop Derek from--

Derek snatches it from him before that thought goes any further.

“I’ll be out here when you wake up.”

\---

Stiles wakes up to pale morning sunlight streaming in through the cracks in his blinds, a feeling that he made some regrettable decisions last night, and the low sound of growling just outside. He yawns and rubs his eyes. He needs coffee.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting to see when he left his bedroom, but Derek Hale playfully wrestling with the lion cub on his couch wasn’t it.

There are several tears in the leather upholstery next to Derek’s head, and some of its foamy stuffing is spilling out, but somehow Derek doesn’t have a scratch on him.

“Ugh. You’re the worst.” Stiles doesn’t let his eyes linger on the bare stretch of skin where the lion’s heavy paw is pushing Derek’s t-shirt up. “Coffee?”

“Don’t tell me you’re trying to bribe me so I go easy on you, Stilinski?”

“Fine,” Stiles says, filling the coffee pot up enough for one. “Have it your way. No coffee.”

Derek lifts the lion cub off his chest like Rafiki lifting baby Simba and sets him down on the carpet. The cub immediately sets to work on chewing through the leg of Stiles’s coffee table.

“He’s going to wreck my apartment if you let him roam around like that,” Stiles complains. He’s too scared of being maimed to move the lion himself -- he doesn’t have a death wish, thanks -- but Derek seems to be some kind of lion whisperer. He gestures to the cage in the corner. “Can you just put him back in there or something?”

“That cage is too small for him,” Derek says, tone heavy with disapproval. “He’s not going back in it.” He stands up and pads barefoot over to the kitchen counter. Stiles wonders when he decided to take his shoes off. “Anyway. I spoke to your friend Scott a little while ago.”

Stiles freezes where he’s pouring Lucky Charms into a cereal bowl.

“What.”

Scott is the last person who should be talking to Derek right now. Scott doesn’t have a conniving bone in his body. Scott is the sort of person whose sheer honesty will land them both in jail one day.

“He called you at seven,” Derek elaborates. “Because of all the texts you sent him last night.”

“Right,” Stiles says. He can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ear drums. “And?”

“And when I explained that this situation could get you in trouble he said he’ll be over in--” Derek performatively checks the time on Stiles’s phone. “Oh, around ten minutes.”

Derek tosses phone back to him across the counter. Stiles is still holding the box of Lucky Charms, and his instincts tell him not to let go of it. Cereal is messy to clean up. His phone hits the linoleum floor with a dull thud. Derek hesitates -- clearly that wasn’t part of his plan -- then continues. “Good luck trying to get your story straight before then.”

Stiles snorts. “That was the least smooth scary cop speech I’ve ever heard. If my phone screen is cracked I’m sending you the bill to get it fixed, and I’ll go to an official Apple store instead of the dodgy repair place around the corner just so it’s extra expensive.”

He sets the Lucky Charms down and scoops his phone up. Not cracked -- thankfully -- but the screen is lit up with a stream of messages from Scott.

**_Hi Officer Hale. Thanks for getting in touch. Do I need to bring a lawyer with me?_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Can the content of our phone call be held against me in a court of law?_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Do you have a number for a lawyer?_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Could you ask Stiles to call one?_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Just realised that you have his phone. Don’t worry about it, I’ll just head over._ ** **_  
_ ** ******_Sorry stuck in traffic. Will be there in 10 mins!_**

Stiles unlocks his phone and quickly types out a series of replies.

**_Scott, you are such an idiot sometimes._ ** **_  
_ ** **_Why would you tell a cop that you’re texting whilst driving???_ ** **_  
_ ** **_AKA breaking the law???_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Christ. You and your honesty are a lost cause._ ** **_  
_ ** ******_Let me do the talking when you get here._**

Derek raises an eyebrow at him across the counter.

“What are you looking at?” Stiles demands as he begins to delete all the incriminating parts of his conversation with Scott. “You gave it back to me.”

\---

Stiles is watching as Derek feeds the cub chunks of raw meat with his bare hands with a mixture of disgust and fascination when the intercom buzzes seven minutes later. Scott is wheezing when he arrives at the door.

“Did you run up the stairs?” Stiles says. “I thought we agreed you should stop running up the stairs.”

“We agreed that I’d run up the stairs only in cases of emergency,” Scott corrects. “And there’s a _police officer_ threatening to arrest you right now, dude. That’s basically the definition of an emergency. I had to run up the stairs.”

“Ha,” Stiles says, dismissive. “It’s just Derek. Derek doesn’t warrant running up the stairs.”

Derek scowls and snaps, “Derek could handcuff you to the radiator.”

“Derek doesn’t have handcuffs with him,” Stiles says with complete confidence. “If you had them you would have cuffed me to the bed last night.” Derek looks affronted. Stiles feels his cheeks burn. “Not like _that_ , obviously, but -- you know. Those pajama pants are so tight you probably couldn’t fit a dime in your pocket, let alone any police equipment.”

“I can fit plenty of dimes in these pockets,” Derek says. “I always wear them to the laundromat.”

“Not the point, dude. Not even slightly the point.”

“So,” Scott interrupts from the doorway. “Should I, like, come in, or...?”

“Oh shit, dude! Of course. Get in here.” Stiles holds the door open and ushers Scott in. “Forgot you were there for a second. It’s been a long night.”

Scott obligingly scuttles into the apartment and abruptly does a double take when he sees the lion. It is perched at the foot of the couch, calm as an actual household animal, eating raw meat out of Derek’s hand.

“Oh -- wow. You let him out?”

“Derek let him out,” Stiles corrects. “Because he’s some sort of sadist. I plan to hold him accountable for any and all destruction of my property caused.”

Predictably, this earns him an eye roll.

“What are you gonna do? Report me, a police officer, for helping this poor animal that you were illegally harboring under inhumane conditions in your apartment? Yeah. I’m sure that will work out well for you.”

“Cops can get away with anything these days,” Stiles grumbles. “Goddamn corrupt system.”

“That corrupt system has saved you from at least seventeen parking tickets,” Derek points out. “And probably from charges for a plethora of petty crimes that I don’t know about, so I wouldn’t complain about it too hard if I were you.”

Scott, now seated on the tattered couch, gives Stiles his signature dude-has-a-point look.

“Point taken,” Stiles acquiesces. “I guess we should talk about the lion, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles would be the first to admit that he’s put his jeep through more than its old engine can handle since his dad gave him the keys and a stern warning to “be sensible” for his sixteenth birthday, but this might be the worst stretch of road it has encountered yet. The path Derek directed him down is barely wide enough for a vehicle, overgrown and unpaved, and the car groans in displeasure as its wheels hit a tree root that has burst through the middle of the dirt terrain.

“Be careful,” Derek snaps from the backseat, as if the road conditions are Stiles’s fault.

The lion cub is dozing in Derek’s arms, its golden head is nestled in the crook of Derek’s elbow. Stiles resents how familiar that tableau has become to him. Ever since Derek decided to intervene, the lion has not set paw in its cage, no matter the consequences for Stiles’s belongings or upholstery. The only thing it doesn’t seem determined to destroy is Derek.

“You’re the one who insisted we take this creepy route through the forest,” Stiles returns, matching Derek’s snappish tone. He directs a wistful look at the GPS on his dashboard, where the arrow that represents his jeep is surrounded by nothing but blank space. “This isn’t even a real road.”

“I’ve never taken this route through the preserve before,” Scott says with diplomatic caution, though his expression has grown incrementally more alarmed ever since Derek signalled for Stiles to turn off the road and into the treeline. “It’s very… quiet.”

“If you weren’t an officer of the law, I’d assume this is the start of an elaborate murder plot,” Stiles mutters darkly. “I bet no one would find our bodies out here.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “We’re about five minutes from the main road. Take the next left.”

Stiles does as he’s told -- against his better instincts -- and follows Derek’s instructions until they reach a small clearing. There, hidden amongst the trees, is a dilapidated little building with brick walls covered in moss and boarded-up windows.

“Here we are,” Derek says.

The lion stretches its head up and yawns at the announcement.

“What do you mean we’re here?” Stiles exchanges an incredulous look with Scott, then scrambles out of the jeep to better take in his surroundings. “Is this meant to be it? You said we were going to see an expert in exotic animals, not some shack in the middle of nowhere.”

“Maybe they’ve moved,” Scott suggests. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for a while.”

Derek hoists the lion cub over one shoulder and ignores them both, heading directly for the door. He knocks once, loudly. Stiles expects it to swing open by itself -- old school horror movie style -- and is left almost disappointed when a normal middle-aged man opens the door with a calm smile.

“Derek,” the man says, his expression neutral as he takes in the lion cub in Derek’s arms. “I see you have something a situation on your hands. Please, come on through.”

Stiles grabs Scott’s sleeve and tugs him close.

“Listen, Scott. I _know_ that guy,” he hisses, gesturing towards the man in the doorway. “Dude runs the Beacon Hills animal clinic. My dad used to consult him about the animal attacks in the area.”

Scott perks up at that. “I wonder if he’s looking for an assistant.” He tilts his head to one side like a puppy. “Maybe I can ask him after he checks the lion out. I’ve been looking for a summer placement for the last couple of months, it would be great to find somewhere close to my--”

“Not the point, bro,” Stiles interrupts. “This dude is a _veterinarian_ , and not even a good one from what I remember. He didn’t know how to treat my boa when she had that respiratory infection.” He crosses his arms across his chest and casts the shabby building another suspicious frown. “Am I really meant to believe he’s some great exotic animal expert now?”

“It’s been almost a decade since your boa died,” Scott points out. “Maybe he retrained.”

Derek reappears at the door then, glaring at them. “Are you two coming inside or not?”

“Might as well give the guy a chance,” Scott says with a shrug. “We’re here now, and I don’t see anyone else queuing up to help us.”

The inside of the shack is surprisingly modern and well-kempt compared to its exterior. There are no windows, but the room is well lit, and the sterile smell of recently-used bleach permeates the air. Derek has already deposited the lion cub on the examination table, and the doctor has fitted a fabric harness around his torso to keep him still.

“This is Dr. Deaton,” Derek says. “Doc, these two claim they rescued the cub from traffickers.”

“I _did_ rescue the cub from traffickers,” Scott retorts, indignant.

“I see,” says Deaton. “Well then. Let me start with a preliminary health assessment.”

\---

After around half an hour of prodding, poking, and torch-shining, Deaton concludes that the cub is in surprisingly good shape. He is likely between 10 and 12 weeks old, although his growth may have been stunted by the stress of his former captivity, and he is in relatively good health.

Scott, who has been watching the examination like a hawk, asks about a thousand questions while Deaton puts together a bag full of supplement boxes and instructs them to hide the tablets inside a portion of meat twice a day.

“Wait,” Stiles interjects, alarmed. “You mean you’re just gonna leave it with us?”

“I’m afraid so,” Deaton says, tone not even slightly apologetic. “If I’m found to be harboring an illegal animal, I could lose my veterinary licence.” He hands the bag of supplies to Scott as Derek hauls the cub back up over his shoulder. “I’ll call around to animal sanctuaries in the area,” Deaton promises. “But for now I trust that the cub will be safe in your hands.”

“Safe in our hands?” Stiles repeats, incredulous, as soon as he’s out of earshot and back behind the wheel of his jeep. “Dude knows us for two hours and decides this dangerous, wild creature is _safe_ in our hands?” Stiles turns to narrow his eyes at Derek as he reverses out of the clearing. “Where did you find this so-called expert, Craigslist?”

“My family have worked with Dr. Deaton for years,” Derek retorts, defensive.

“I’m sure the long history of your family’s extraordinary encounters with the local veterinarian is enough to convince you that he’s the ultimate authority on the illegal lion cub we’re harboring, but you’ll have to forgive me for having my doubts. I don’t think I’m ready to put all my faith in a dude who conducts his business from a run-down, remote forest shack.”

Derek’s eyebrows pull together above a deep scowl.

“I thought you would appreciate meeting somewhere more discreet than the local clinic in the middle of town, but I guess I should have known you prefer to conduct your misdemeanors as publicly as possible. No wonder your dad had to strike so much from your record.”

Stiles slams the breaks and spins around in his seat again, his mouth already curling around a vicious response.

“Well,” Scott interjects, ever the pacifist. “The dude seemed to know what he was doing.”

Scott reaches over and squeezes Stiles’s knee once, firm and grounding, and Stiles concedes and reigns in his temper with a half-hearted eye roll when Scott pulls out his signature ‘let it go bro’ smile. Stiles levels one final glare at Derek and restarts the engine.

“Yo, Derek,” Scott continues, as if their silent exchange never happened. “Do you know if the doc ever hires summer interns or anything?”

“Not sure.” Derek shrugs. “I can ask him for you if you want.”

“Are you serious?” Scott turns his smile up to full beam. “Thanks, man. The placement I was meant to do fell through a couple of weeks ago, and I seriously need to get those credits. You have no idea how much that would help me out.”

“I’ll mention it to him next time we talk,” Derek says.

His lips curve almost imperceptibly upwards when he speaks. It’s an expression that wouldn’t be close to a smile on anyone other than Derek, but because it’s such a departure from his usual glares and grimaces that it seems to change his demeanor completely. For once, Stiles thinks, Derek looks _almost_ approachable.

“Dude,” Scott says, blissfully oblivious. “That’s awesome.”

Stiles ignores the sharp pang of bitterness he feels at the fact that the two of them are -- somehow, impossibly -- already bonding, and tries to concentrate as he navigates the jeep out of the treeline and back onto the real road.

He tells himself that Scott always has been the more likable of the two of them, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that they get along, even if it does feel strange and sudden. Stiles didn’t know Derek’s face could form any expressions other than scowl and frown for the entire first year that they knew each other, but that’s -- whatever.

The road ahead forks at the familiar intersection between Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital and the police station. It’s only 4 PM, several hours before the sun is due to set, and Stiles is distracted from his angst by a warm feeling of familiarity and nostalgia. His expression must turn embarrassingly soft, because Scott meets his eyes with a lopsided and knowing smile.

“Been a while since we’ve been home, huh?” Scott says.

It’s the middle of March, and Stiles hasn’t had time to visit his dad since Christmas. It didn’t register, before, how much time had passed since then.

“I guess we should check up on things,” Stiles agrees, and when the lights change he takes the left towards the hospital. He pulls the jeep over in the furthest -- and quietest -- corner of the parking lot. “Scottie, you’re up. Go invite your mom for dinner at my dad’s place when her shift ends. Tell her I’ll whip up something good.”

“I know that’s your dad-code for salad,” Scott grumbles half-heartedly as he gets out of the car. The door slams shut behind him, and Stiles and Derek sit and watch him disappear through the front entrance in stilted silence.

“Don’t you think you should check that your dad is free before you invite people over to his place?” Derek says after several long moments.

Stiles scoffs. “Don’t you think you should try minding your own business? Just once in your life?” He turns in his seat and directs a dirty look at Derek over the back of his seat. “Also, dude, if you’re really going to insist on carrying that thing around on your lap the whole time, can you at least scrooch down? I’m not in the mood to deal with any more of my dad’s deputies right now.”

“I’m not your dad’s deputy,” Derek protests.

“Of course,” Stiles says, faux-apologetic. “These days you’re a strong, independent city officer who would never go running to the sheriff at the first hint of crime. I get it, man. But that doesn’t mean I want _more_ of my dad’s drones hanging around -- former deputy or otherwise -- so scrooch the fuck _down_.”

Derek does no scrooching, but he does place his wide palm against the back of the cub’s head and gently lower it down against his knee. The cub lets out a quiet huff of annoyance at the movement, but when Derek strokes the soft fur at the back of his neck he promptly nuzzles closer.

“What are you, some sort of animal whisperer?” Stiles wonders aloud. “He’s like a whole different species when you’re around.”

“No,” Derek says. “He just likes me more than he likes you.”

The conversation lapses back into an uneasy silence. Stiles is grateful for the distraction when his phone buzzes three times in quick succession. Both texts are from his dad.

 **_Melissa tells me you are back in Beacon Hills. Next time you could try letting your old man know that you’re around...._ ** ****_  
_ **_My shift finishes at 7PM. I will see you at home for dinner._ ** **_  
_ ** ******_PS. I know Derek is with you & Scott. Make sure you invite him along._**

Stiles should have guessed this would happen. The McCalls are notoriously blabber-mouthed. Scott will tell anyone anything unless Stiles explicitly tells him not to, and even then, slip-ups have been known to happen. He supposes it’s the result of years of dealing with Scott and Stiles’s shenanigans that Melissa -- although afflicted to a lesser degree -- is no better when it comes to Stiles’s dad.

 **_If you make me invite Derek, you can forget any hopes you had of burgers for dinner._ ** **_  
_ ** **_How does grilled zucchini sound??_ **

His dad replies a moment later.

 **_Disgusting, but I’ll take it. You were never going to make me burgers anyway._ ** **_  
_ ** **_Tell Derek that he’s invited. Now._ **

Stiles knows there’s no point in arguing. If he doesn’t do it, his dad -- or maybe Scott, if Melissa enlists his help -- will. So he tucks his phone back in his pocket and resigns himself to his fate.

“Derek,” he says. “Do you want to join us for dinner?”

\---

Stiles is running out of socks.

They have already secured eight of his ugliest pairs around the cub’s paws, and now they’re onto the low tiers of his decent ones. They have something of a system going by now: Derek holds the cub in place, Scott maneuvers his leg towards Stiles, and Stiles -- who somehow managed to draw the short straw -- carefully rolls the socks over his claws and then secures them in place with a rubber band.

He isn’t taking any chances when it comes to the furniture in his childhood bedroom, partly out of sentimentality, but largely because he does _not_ want to explain claw marks in the woodwork to his dad.

“Right,” he says, sitting back on his heels. “I think that should do it. Now we just need to find something for that giant mouth of his.”

Derek -- for about the eighth time in the last ten minutes -- rolls his eyes so hard his irises disappear into his head.

“This is ridiculous,” he says.

“You’re ridiculous,” Stiles counters.

Stiles casts his eyes around his bedroom, looking for something suitably restrictive and protective, and has a _eureka_ moment when he sees his old lacrosse helmet on the bookshelf. He leans over and snags it, contemplatively turning it over in his hands. It looks like it would fit loosely over the lion’s head -- which is much smaller than a teenaged Stiles’s was -- and if it stays on then the face mask will put some distance between his stuff and the cub’s jaws.

“You can’t be serious,” Derek says, his arms tightening around the cub. “You are _not_ putting that on his head. He wouldn’t be able to see anything through it. It’d scare the shit out of him.”

Stiles looks to Scott for support, but Scott shrugs back uncertainly.

“It does seem a bit risky,” he admits. “He was living with poachers until, like, two days ago. We don’t know what he’s been through. Leaving him here with restricted vision might bring back a traumatic memory and freak him out, especially if he feels like he can’t defend himself.”

If Scott doesn’t have his back, Stiles has come to learn, it means he’s probably in the wrong.

“Well.” He sets the helmet down, deflated. “I’m not leaving him alone up here with all those teeth snapping around, and I am _not_ letting him downstairs to attack my dad, so -- unless one of you two has a better suggestions -- I’m gonna have to put him back in the jeep.” Scott’s eyebrows furrow in disapproval. “Dude, we can crack the window open a little to make sure he doesn’t suffocate.”

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose in despair.

“What?” Stiles holds his chin up, defiant. “It’s not like you’ve offered up any alternatives.”

Derek lets out a slow, pained sigh. “Fine. Give me your keys.” He holds his hand out, expectant. “I can drop him at my sister’s place for the evening. She probably won’t ask too many questions.”

“You think I’d give _you_ the keys to my jeep? Get real. I’ve seen the way you drive that awful muscle car of yours around, and I’ve _seen_ how you park it.”

“It’s not a muscle car. It’s a Camaro.”

“Do you think those are two different things?”

Derek’s jaw clenches in irritation, but he’s smart enough not to attempt to argue. Stiles takes the answering silence to mean that Derek knows his car is the automotive equivalent of a fully flexed six-pack. Scott gives Stiles an exasperated-but-amused look and rolls his eyes.

“Dude, just give me the keys. I’ll drive these two over to Derek’s sister’s place, and you can start on rummaging through your dad’s fridge and leaving scary post-it notes on the food you disapprove of.”

Stiles makes a face -- mostly at the accuracy of everything Scott just said -- and obligingly hands the keys over to Scott. “Protect my car with your life,” he says.

\---

Scott and Derek return half an hour later with an obvious sense of camaraderie and a couple of bags from a familiar Chinese take-out restaurant between them.

Stiles should have guessed that this would happen when they left. If two things about Scott are unfailingly true, one is that he would befriend a rock if he thought it were sentient, and the other is that he would go to any length to avoid eating Stiles’s dad-cooking.

“I thought your salad might need some sides, dude,” Scott tells him, unapologetic, as he unloads twelve different take-out cartons from his bag onto the kitchen counter. “I got the heart-healthy options mostly, but it’s always nice to have some variety.”

“You’re the worst,” Stiles says as he eyes the selection. His salad does look a little sad in comparison, and much less appetising. Stiles doesn’t even like zucchini. “I’ll allow it this time,” he concedes. “But,” he interrupts sternly when Scott immediately turns to Derek for a high five. “You have to eat all the sweet and sour pork before my dad gets to it.”

“Done.”

Scott pops the carton in question open without further prompting, grabs himself and Derek a pair of chopsticks each, and immediately digs in. Derek thanks Scott with a small smile, but quickly puts the chopsticks down without taking anything.

“What did you make?” Derek asks, gesturing to the bowl of assorted greens. “It smells nice.”

Stiles raises an eyebrow back at him. “As if you can smell salad through all this Chinese.” Derek shrugs in response. “It’s just grilled zucchini with a leaf salad and some ranch dressing, so nothing special.”

“It’s nice that you take care of your dad,” Derek says. “I remember how you used to send him to work with a packed lunch every day. He would sit in the break room pulling faces at the vegetables like a school kid.”

Stiles smiles at the thought.

They are just finished with arranging the takeout on hot plates when Stiles’s dad arrives home. He has a twelve pack of beer under his arm and a big smile on his face. Scott is standing closest to the door, and pulls him into a one-armed hug before he even has his boots off.

“You look great, man! Have you been working out?” Scott releases him with a back-slap and takes the heavy box of beer under his arm. “Here, let me put these in the fridge for you so they’ll be cold when we eat.”

Stiles ducks around him as Scott hurries to the kitchen.

“Hey, kiddo,” his dad says, pulling him in for a tight embrace. When he pulls back his eyes are crinkled up at the corners, age-old laughter lines curving like parentheses around his warm smile. “Are you still growing? I could’ve sworn you were up to here last time I saw you.” He holds his hand up in line with Stiles’s eyebrows to demonstrate.

“I haven’t grown an inch since I was seventeen.” Stiles narrows his eyes at his dad. “You sure it’s not just you that’s shrinking?”

“Not according to the bathroom scale,” his dad quips.

He pats a hand against his stomach and directs a wink towards the corner of the room. Derek has been hovering there in strained silence like a vampire waiting for an invitation to enter into the conversation. Stiles looks around at him just in time to see Derek’s lips flicker up in a cautiously amused smile.

“Hello, Sheriff.” Derek moves out of the shadowy corner and into what little space there is beside Stiles in the narrow entranceway. He hesitates for a moment, like he’s forgotten how to make his limbs work, and then extends a hand towards Stiles’s dad. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Well now, there’s no need to be so formal. I’m not your boss any more, but even if I were, I’m just John when I’m in my own home.” Stiles’s dad bypasses Derek’s handshake and gives him a firm squeeze on the shoulder instead. “I’m glad you could make it. It’s good to see you, son.”

\---

Stiles loads the remaining Chinese food into three containers while Scott washes up, his elbow deep in soapy water, and Derek -- somehow roped in to helping them instead of sitting with the _actual_ adults in the next room -- diligently dries each dish as Scott presents them to him.

The salad bowl, which was meant to have enough bland greenery to feed five people, sits in Scott’s to-wash pile.

It’s empty -- and suspiciously so.

Melissa and Derek are the only people who put any of the salad on their plates other than Stiles, and Stiles only did it so he could throw a pointed look across the table at his dad. When John rolled his eyes in response, Melissa took some too in what Stiles assumes was an act of solidarity. But between the two of them, Stiles and Melissa barely made a dent in the salad.

Derek must have eaten _all_ of the rest.

“You must be super into salad,” Stiles concludes aloud. “Guess that makes sense. You probably can’t go around eating takeaway and stuff and still maintain muscle definition like that.”

The relaxed curve of Derek’s shoulders straightens abruptly, like the sound of Stiles’s voice is a call to arms. “I eat takeaways all the time,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” Stiles cocks an eyebrow at him, challenging. “Then tell me why you skipped out on all this deep fried deliciousness and ate the equivalent of four servings of salad instead.”

A muscle in Derek’s clenched jaw twitches visibly.

“I was in the mood for salad.” He sets the plate he was drying down and folds his arms across his chest, defensive. “The zucchini tasted good with the ranch dressing.”

“Whoa,” Scott says, turning to stare at Derek in disbelief. “Bad call, dude.”

Derek shrugs. “I liked the salad.”

Stiles pauses where he’s packing containers full of takeaway into a tote bag for Melissa, surprised that the back of his neck feels hot with embarrassment. He isn’t sure if Derek’s deadpan delivery is sincere or not, but either way, the unexpected compliment has thrown him off.

He chances a glance at Derek, trying to get a read on him, and ends up meeting Scott’s eyes instead. Scott’s lips are turned up in a lopsided smirk. Stiles figures his cheeks must be red. He quickly turns back to the leftovers.

Derek -- oblivious -- picks up the next soapy plate and blankly continues drying the dishes.

“Now then,” Stiles’s dad interjects from the kitchen doorway. Stiles startles, and the takeaway containers he’s holding all rattle to the floor. His dad offers him a wry smile. “Not that I don’t appreciate your company, but shouldn’t you kids be hitting the road?”

Scott shrugs. “We’re not in a rush.”

“Don’t you have a practical exam tomorrow?” Melissa calls in from the next room. “Or have I misremembered you complaining about how underprepared you are for it for two hours of our Skype call yesterday?”

Scott rinses off the last plate and passes it to Derek.

“I guess we could head out,” he concedes.

\---

“Be sensible,” Stiles’s dad says, crouching down beside the driver’s side door.

Stiles makes a face at him through the car window. “No promises.”

He starts the engine, and the jeep rumbles to life beneath him.

“Derek,” his dad calls out as Stiles backs out of the driveway. “You have my permission to arrest him any and every time he’s being a little shit.”

“Noted, Sheriff,” Derek answers with a small salute.

Stiles -- indignant -- slams the accelerator and swings the jeep the rest of the way out of the drive.


End file.
